With about five minutes left in Sunday's game at US Airways Center in Phoenix, the Dallas Mavericks went to a matchup zone, their dozenth defense of the afternoon. The Suns appeared confused, but eventually forward Shawn Marion darted to his left across the lane and put up a righthanded floater that was nearly blocked. It was an awful-looking shot. It also went in, giving Phoenix a 109-96 lead that all but sealed its 126-104 victory.

To some, the shot said it all about NBA basketball, 48 minutes of seemingly spontaneous, even chaotic action packed into 24-second intervals. While football coaches plan with the precision of generals and baseball managers rely on cold, hard percentages (not to mention countless bromides), basketball coaches can apparently do nothing to affect the outcome. They're left to pace the sideline, scream at referees and add a sweat-ring pattern to their Armani suits as their players ad lib.

Not the case. When the league's two best teams took the court, they did so with meticulously calibrated game plans in place. In fact, every NBA team goes into a game with a plan, even the Memphis Grizzlies, who appear to have no plan at all except to lose as often as possible and add Greg Oden or Kevin Durant to their roster. The schemes of the Mavs and the Suns were more hastily constructed than ones in the NFL (both teams had played last Friday night) and were extremely fluid. But they had been formulated -- just as those in the NFL are -- only after hours of film watching and with an attention to detail that would amaze even an aficionado, never mind the guy who thinks the NBA stands for No Brainpower Allowed.